Tag Archives: death

When you read a book, most likely you’ll get attached to some of the characters. And then some of them die. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Well, in today’s VEDA video, I talked about 4 female characters that I really did not want to happen. Why only female? I’ve found that there aren’t many male deaths that have affected me. There are a couple, but I don’t think it’s enough for a video.

If you want to know which characters they are, then you must watch this video. But be warned that there are spoilers! If you don’t want to be spoiled, then don’t watch. The books featured are:

Angel Fire East, by Terry Brooks

The Rise of Endymion, by Dan Simmons

The Elfstones of Shannara, by Terry Brooks

Dragonsdawn, by Anne McCaffrey

I won’t mention the characters, but you can find out if you watch.

If you’ve read any of these books, let me know what you thought of these characters’ deaths without giving any specifics about the names or how they died in the comments section below. Also, don’t tell me about any other characters in different books, because I don’t like spoilers, either!

Sometimes, main characters die. While reading, maybe your favourite character dies. Doesn’t feel good, does it? Do you go into mourning? Do you cry? But what if the author is killing the main character? How do they feel?

Question 111: How do you (or would you) feel when you kill a main character?

First, I laugh maniacally. Second, I think of how my beta readers (and then my actual readers) will take it. Then I laugh maniacally again, while trying to figure out how best to defend myself from irate friends/coworkers/fans. …Seriously, I kill a lot of characters.

Well, that depends on who the main character is. If you mean a protag, I don’t think I’ve ever killed one yet. A main character that isn’t a protag, yes, I have. Love killing off the villains — but that’s because they are so horrible! I really make them deserve it. There’s definitely a lot of ‘Take that you F**ker!’ when I’m writing those scenes. Ahem.

I’ve only killed one main character so far, and it was fantastic. Her death is a very emotional moment for the other characters, and I loved playing with words and feelings and denial and darkness. The scene makes me cry whenever I read it. Emotionally-charged scenes are just cool to write, so I enjoyed it. A lot.

I’m as emotionally stoic as my character. Only once did I write I write a story where I killed a character. Since I knew the outcome, I wrote the story accordingly to get that point of death. I felt as cold-hearted as the character who was to blame because I knew I was out to kill. Please don’t contact the FBI.

Killing someone I’ve spent a lot of time with and formed an attachment to isn’t exactly fun. It can be emotionally exhausting to write. I recently killed a secondary character I’ve been writing for many years and two books. It was hard to write but I hope his death was worth it for the series as a whole.

I don’t usually feel hurt about it, as cold as that sounds. I worry more about getting the death right and making it meaningful. I doubt want to give the impression that I’m killing characters for the sake of being edgy, but I want it known that important people will have to die in the right circumstances.

Ask Shadovsky. It feels like killing a part of myself. I have done it, will do it if the story calls for it, but I don’t like it when a main character dies for no good reason. I’ve thrown books across the room when reading for far less.

It feels terrible. I wrote all of In Siege of Daylight without even admitting to myself which characters were likely to die, because I didn’t want to unconsciously telegraph my knowledge of their impending demise in the writing – and then I ended up killing even more just because that’s where the story led.

One minor character in particular met a brutal and sudden fate that I didn’t see coming. I had plans for that character! Interactions in my head! A life planned! And that’s why it felt more real. If you only kill the obvious redshirts, then the death loses significance to the author and the reader. Feeling terrible about it helps make it more genuine. Maybe even more so than the demise of main characters, whose fates are largely bigger than life and tied into grander things. It still feels terrible to kill a main character, but maybe the blow is softened a bit by its deeper connection to the narrative.

Hmmm. I guess that makes the author Fate. When I’ve fated a main character to die because of the PLOT, I have time to come to terms with it. It’s written in the stars. When I allow it to happen in the evolution of a scene, that’s more akin to happenstance.

It depends on the character, for sure. I’ve killed off characters that didn’t affect me in the slightest – it just felt like an obvious part of the story that needed to occur. On the other hand, I’ve killed off characters (or planned to kill of characters) that I’d gotten extremely attached to and it felt like a huge punch in the gut to do it. I like writing dramatic stuff, but sometimes a character starts to feel like a real person, and in those cases it can be extremely difficult to go through with a death.

If it’s a character I love, I’d probably feel awful about it. But on the other hand, I’d be curious about how my readers would react to it. IF it’s a character I hate, I’d probably feel wonderful and have a lot of fun writing the scene. There is a character I’m killing off soon in what I’m writing, and although he is a main character, his death is an important moment that will affect the direction of the story and the attitudes of the other characters. But how do I feel about it? I’m very curious about reactions. I don’t hate the character. I’d just always planned to have him die, so I’ve been trying not to become attached to him.

How about you?

If you’re an author, how do you feel when you kill off a main character? If you’re a reader, how do you feel when a main character is killed? Let us know in the comments below.

Sixteen and a half years old, Romeo left us today. I’m feeling quite down while my daughter says, “Are you sad? Do you miss Romeo? It’ll be okay. I love you.” Then she gives me a big hug. My four year old is stronger? But I’m not sure if she understands how final this is.

I’ll be making a couple videos this weekend. One about Romeo and one about Tommy’s first day of school. Look for them when they’re done.

My sister’s dog is 16 years old. I watch him sleeping most of the time, and when he is awake, he needs to eat, pee, or poop. He doesn’t really play much anymore, though he does at times. Sometimes he acts like a puppy. But most of the time, he groans and cries as he tries to lie down and sleep. He wears a cone right now because he keeps licking a growth (it’s actually an oil gland) and making it bleed. He’s partly blind and mostly deaf. He has trouble going down the stairs, but seems to have no trouble going up quickly. He can still run and be active, so he’s physically reasonably healthy for his age.

But we wonder how long he’ll last. It’s hard to think about it. But it makes me think about three and a half years ago when our dog, Biscuit, died. You can read about it here.

What are your experiences with losing a pet? Let me know in the comments below.

An unfortunate accident in his own driveway caused the death of Anton Yelchin. He was hit by his own Jeep, which was in neutral, and it pinned and crushed him when it rolled back toward him. I hate hearing news like this. Far too young.

It was an interesting night. Tonight was the night that we went to the parent orientation night at my daughter’s school. That was fine, and I learned a lot about what’s going to happen. However, there was something that happened that left a far bigger impression on my mind.

As we were walking to the school, we saw a police car going past with its lights on. No siren, though. We were wondering what happened. After the orientation, we were walking home when we saw the police were up the street. It was more than an hour after we saw the police, so something must have happened. We walked in that direction, and saw that the street had been blocked off. Six police cars. We continued walking, going to the supermarket. We also saw a motorcycle, a couple of cars, and something that looked like a bag.

On our way back home, we walked past the police again. There was a fire truck. But we didn’t know what had happened yet. So, I did a search online. What I found was a police report about the incident.

There was an accident. A dirt bike crashed into a fence, and the rider, a forty-year-old man died. Well then, that was unexpected. I wonder why he crashed into the fence.

When I lived in Japan, I experienced earthquakes frequently. I went through the big one on March 11th, 2011. But on April 14th, Kumamoto went through its own big earthquake.

Nine people are dead, mainly because of collapsed houses. It’s really strange reading all the comments on Facebook and reading the news articles. I used to be the one to write those comments about earthquakes, but now I don’t feel them. There are no earthquakes here. It really is strange not going through them anymore.

In a way, I miss earthquakes. Does that sound strange? What do you think?